


All I've lost in the fight to protect it

by Clubsheartsspades



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Jonah Magnus wins in this one, Lonely!Martin, Martin contemplates life in the new world, Not Really Character Death, The Lonely - Freeform, actually post season 5 but I don't know how things will work out, if you want to see it there's hope, it's still very sad, or he thinks he does, post 160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clubsheartsspades/pseuds/Clubsheartsspades
Summary: What is the loneliest thing in this ruined world?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86





	All I've lost in the fight to protect it

What is the loneliest thing in this world?

Is it the ruins? Cities fallen to rot and decay, humans crawling away from the horror and fear long infected lungs breathe. Stone and concrete crumbling and dying along with those, who lived in the now contagious walls, under the roof raining invisible spores, home to nothing more than just worms and maggots and death.

Or is it the graveyards? Filled with the truly dead. Those who were lucky, those who died before death was nothing more than painful sleep, those who never knew the new world in all its fearful glory.

Or is it the dark cellars underneath? Where humans huddle, holding onto each other, fearing for what their eyes might catch, fearing those they cling to, not knowing if it’s friend or foe or even human like themselves. Not knowing if they are human anymore. All but forgetting what light looks like, what happens when eyes see, when darkness lifts.

Or is it, by all means, the places the Lonely clings to? Endless stretches of fog and shore, rivalling the Vast in its capability of leaving humans lost within its borders. There are people in the fog. Too far apart to find each other, merely shadows in the distance, lights that shine from beyond the realm they are now doomed to wander.

What is the loneliest thing in this ruined world?

 _It must be me,_ Martin thinks. It must be what never had a chance to grow. It must be what the world lost. It must be memories that never happened. Or did they?

Martin never dreams in the Lonely. There’s no sleep left for him to fall into, no dreams to haunt him. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe it’s a blessing. Then again, if he dreamed, Martin knows what he’d dream of.

Wide green fields (not too wide, mind you, not endless), a window opening into a small living room (not too small, not crushing). Martin would stand in a garden, the softest of winds playing with his hair (it always smells like sea salt in his memories, even though he knows it’s not true). And there would be flowers and greenery, there would be tea (maybe that’s what the wind smells of, tea and honey and too much sugar), there would be a voice calling him back from the fields and the greenery and his own head. And sometimes there would be a hand, warm, but scarred, combing through his hair. There would be soft words, dripping from chapped lips like tears of honey.

_I love you._

There would be a kiss and another and another, barely stifled laughter, a body, small and scarred, but safe, so very safe in Martin’s arms.

_I loved you._

Jon always felt warm in Martin’s arms. In his memories, he is always close to him, always in reach. In the dreams he doesn’t dream, Jon smiles at him with the very smile Martin came to kiss from his lips in the days before the world ended. It’s shy, tired, speaks of past pains and his nightmares, but it’s there. It’s so incredibly vulnerable, Martin always pulled him close into an embrace.

In his memories, Jon always hugs him back.

Nowadays, he doesn’t see much of him. Not that it matters, really. Not that it should. Not that he _wants_ to. He sometimes reaches for him, when they meet, and Jon lets him touch his hand. It’s warm, it’s alive. It’s not what he looks for. It never will be. And it’s okay. It has to be.

Martin cannot search for more. There will never be more. The world ended, they travelled through it, saw the horrors in person, watched them take and take and take. There will never be an end to this. There will never arise a new hope from this broken corpse of a world. The entities are draining it of fear, strangling hope, forcing life to stay within the decaying body of the prize they claimed with claws and teeth and eyes.

“What is the loneliest thing in the world?”, Martin asks aloud.

It takes a moment, but time is warped in the Lonely, time has no meaning anymore. So maybe it takes a moment or maybe it takes a decade for the figure to clear its way through the thick fog swirling around Martin, protecting him from what dares to intrude this holy plain of loneliness.

“Is this a riddle?”, Jon asks.

He always finds his way to Martin, even through the fog. Martin never asked how, and he never will. The answer could be easy, just the Eye telling him. But the answer could also hurt. It could be easier to find Martin in the Lonely because he loved – _I love him, I cannot not love him, I can never not love him_ – Jon once before. And wouldn’t that be terrifying? To know he’s easy to find simply because once, before, he loved him?

“You know everything.”

Jon hums. He doesn’t sit, just stand there next to him, looking down to where Martin sits on the shore. Of course, he tries to _know_ him, tries to know the answer, but the Lonely holds him back. He cannot know what isn’t real. And Martin made very sure he’s out of reach long ago. So now, he’s the fog the waves bring, he’s the breath in a cold night, he’s only barely here. Everything he is, everything he ever was and ever will be, is spread all over the Lonely, reaches far away, curling safely around a place he remembers, but has no memories of that aren’t fake.

“You seem glum today, my dear.”

Martin cannot be angry anymore. “Don’t call me that.”

“You liked it. Before.”

“Because it was _him._ ”

Jon laughs. It’s not the same laugh Martin remembers – or tries to remember. Instead it’s loud and carries no joy. The Lonely lets it echo, throws the sound back and forth like a leaf on waves before the sea swallows it whole.

Sometimes, when Martin finds another victim – not dead, never dead – in his realm, when they cling to his coat, reaching for him to talk to them, to prove to them that other people exist and they’re not alone, they’re not the only one, sometimes when he finds them, he strikes a deal with them. They have to describe to him what eye colour they have. They have to tell him about a before. They have to tell him about beautiful things Martin can only remember when he hurts more than the Lonely dulls.

Until now, nobody could give him what he is looking for. Of course they cannot. Nobody ever can. Except maybe his made up memories in which he holds his love, in which he looks into Jon’s eyes and tries to puzzle out what colour they are. They were brown, he is fairly sure, but they could have been green as well.

He knows they never were blue. Because the pale blue eyes Jon has now are not his own.

Because Jonah decided Jon’s powers, his body, his life belonged to him. Because Martin lost the only thing he tried to protect in a second of misplaced attention. Because when he reaches for the body that pretends to be Jon, the face that was once Jon’s twists into a smirk, the sickening imitation of a smile. And Martin pretends to not notice the wrongness in it, just for a second, just for a heartbeat, to tell himself his love is safe, to make himself believe that as long as Jon’s body is safe, as long as he is alive, there is a chance for Martin to get him back.

“You wound me, Martin.”

Martin doesn’t answer. The thing that pretends to be Jon, Jonah Magnus, if it ever was him to begin with, it knows how much Martin hurts. How much it stings him to hear those words in a voice he knows so intimately he considered it a part of himself. Once, back then, in a time nobody really remembers anymore.

And maybe it wasn’t real at all.

Maybe they all fell asleep and dreamed of a different world, of a world that doesn’t hurt and doesn’t hunt and where death is an option. And when they woke up, they found themselves back in this reality, back in a hell of fear and terror.

Maybe Martin never loved Jon. Maybe he never loved him back.

“Do you want something?”

And Martin knows the world before was not a dream, could never have been a dream. He knows because Jon should smile – the shy, little smile that tugs at the corners of his lips and crinkles all around his eyes – and look at him with soft eyes (brown, they should have been brown) before saying: “You. Always you.”

Jon does none of these things. He looks down at Martin, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I want a favour.”

“You always do.”

He chuckles, the sound too cold even for Martin’s fog. “You know me too well, my dear.”

 _I don’t. Not you. Not really._ But Martin says nothing.

“It appears some of the Stranger’s ilk are not above an attack. I want them to learn a lesson. Leave fog around the tower, let them wander until they don’t remember what it is they try to estrange themselves from.”

Martin nods without looking up. “What if I don’t?”

Jon hums again, unconcerned. He always is these days. It’s a weird expression on his face, no frown, no tiredness. Martin would have liked to see him unconcerned before. Before Jonah.

“I guess, you still have your free will. Pity, really, to waste an Archivist’s body, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped.” He adjusts his cuffs. “I never fought like this, he is… small. I do hope he withstands a skinning long enough to save my eyes.”

It is a lie. It will always be a lie. Jonah will never fight, not in Jon’s body, not in anybody’s. But Martin still remembers Jon’s last scream – really remembers, knows with a painful crystal clarity. The echo of it is ingrained in Martin’s bones.

Even with Jonah in his body, even with the wrong eyes, Martin cannot under any circumstances let anybody touch him. If they hurt him, if they hurt the body, there’s no hope for a reversal. There’s no hope for Martin to find the love he lost. There is only one thing he can do.

So he nods, his eyes cast out onto the pale grey sea.

“Perfect. I knew I could count on you, my dear.” Jon’s smile is evident in his voice. Even if it’s not the right smile.

What is the loneliest thing in this world?

Is it lost love? Is it to lose what was thought to be protected? Is it, maybe, him?

Martin doesn’t _know_ answers. He knows pain, he knows fear, he knows the dull gentle emptiness the Lonely feeds him. There are memories, faded like dreams, hard to catch, barely there slivers of thoughts. He protects them. Keeps them as close as he can.

And far out in the Lonely, too close to its centre for wandering humans to find, with fog too thick for even the Eye to see, far out in the loneliest part of the world, where the current of swirling fog threatens to even pull its Avatars into lonely despair, safely hidden, there lie two eyes. They are still bloody, as time doesn’t exist anymore, still attentive, missing the dulling grey that overtakes all dead things here. They are, Martin thinks, of a deep brown. Or maybe, they could be green. He hasn’t seen them in a while, keeps his distance as to not endanger them.

They are, however, not pale blue. Because pale blue are Jonah Magnus eyes. And if Martin can help it, Jon’s body will never have blue eyes again.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I wanted this to be the first chapter of something bigger, but I couldn't make it work the way I wanted it to. So here's some pain.
> 
> If anybody wants to talk to me my Tumblr is [clubsheartsspades](https://clubsheartsspades.tumblr.com/)


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